We need to see and ambitious results under the Kyoto Protocol(KP) as well as LCA track to inspire increased global efforts in future. Currently, there is a crisis of confidence. Despite Cancun pledges and KP commitments, we are yet to reach there. Not that we do not have a framework for it, it exists. Unfortunately, we have not implemented it. The central problem is not therefore of enhancing ambition at the global level, but of implementing commitments as per agreed principles. Availability of technologies and financial resources iskey to these commitments as far as developing countries are concerned.

The second week of the Doha talks opened amid high drama as developing countries unanimously rejected the “draft text” prepared by the chairperson of the ad-hoc working group on long-term cooperative action (AWG-LCA). Such a draft text details the areas of convergence and divergence on all issues that are to be taken up for further deliberations by parties.

Developed countries shy away from promising more money to developing nations from next year till 2020 for mitigation and adaptation measures

Climate finance will be on the top of the minds of negotiators as the UN conference on climate change at Doha enters the second week on December 3. In the first seven days of the conference, the developed countries shied away from promising more money from next year until 2020 to developing countries to undertake mitigation and adaptation measures. The US $30 billion fast-start funding which started in 2010 ends this year and the next batch of funding, which is still under deliberation, begins only in 2020.

Successfully stalls attempts of developed countries’ move to bring agriculture under mitigation efforts

India fiercely defended its farmers’ interests as the first week of Doha climate talks continued up to the wee hours of Sunday, December 2. Taking a firm stand that agriculture was a clear out-of-bounds sector with respect to emissions reduction, India stalled all attempts of the developed world to further discuss the issue in the ongoing CoP 18. The developing world’s long-standing position has been that any discussion on agriculture must be held in the realm of adaptation, not mitigation. The developed world wants to introduce the element of mitigation in agriculture.

Developing countries on Friday managed to bury a proposal of the Least Developing Countries (LDCs) on agriculture. The proposal said that studies need to be carried out to ascertain the role of agriculture in global warming. This proposal, placed before a scientific advisory body of the United Nations Frame Work Convention of Climate Change (UNFCCC) in the ongoing annual climate change talks in Doha, not only showed the deep divisions that run within the developing countries collectively known as the G77+China but was also seen as an aberration to the stand of the developing world that agriculture is only a subject for adaptation and not mitigation.

At the end of the fifth day of the Doha climate talks on November 30, the president of the Conference of Parties (CoP) held an informal meeting of all parties “in the spirit of transparency” to take stock of how negotiations have progressed. The session happened around the time news spread that negotiations will go into closed-door mode—what are called green rooms—when ministers of more than 190 countries arrive early next week in Doha. Speculation was rife on November 30 night in the Qatar National Convention Centre that this move came with the tacit support of some developed countries.

The US made it clear it is not on the same page on equity as the developing nations. On day 3 of the ongoing Conference of Parties on climate change (COP18) in Doha, the deputy chief climate envoy of the US, Jonathan Pershing, told NGOs in an informal briefing session that it would be hard for him to go back to the Congress and sell the idea of equity as espoused by the developing countries.